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#ROW80 Check In
I haven’t done a proper accounting of what I’ve been doing as far as my ROW 80 goals. Though I’ve been working on them, everything has been overtaken with my Savvy participation. It’s worked because the goals have matched up, but I haven’t been focused on this. There’s two weeks to go, so here’s hoping I can do a good showing of myself over the next two weeks.
ROW 80 Goals…
1. Finish Casual Love
The story is done. This week I’m going to do a read through and begin writing the new beginning. I’m disappointed that I need a new beginning, but it will be stronger if I start the real tension earlier in the story.
2. Finish at least two short stories.
I’ve finished two: Rescue Me and Decoy. I’m working on a third with a ridiculous name because I couldn’t come up with something that worked. Names are difficult for me. *sigh* I’m hoping to finish it by the end of ROW. I’m well into the story, but thanks to June and the boot camp I’m a little burned out on solid write, write, write!
3. Do writerly things every day.
With a few exceptions, I’ve written almost every day of the last three months. That’s a major success I think. Building that daily habit is important. My day doesn’t feel complete unless I have written something.
4. Juggle revisions and writing.
This has been fairly successful. I do better by large when I can focus on revisions or writing, but I can do both. Right now I’m doing deep edits on Decoy while polishing Rescue Me and making progress on the zero draft of Booty-Call Bust. It’s difficult, but I think I’m learning!
Weekly Check-In
This week was devoted to my mom’s cycling adventure, which means it kicked my ass and I wrote very, very little. I knew this going into the event, I mean, most people get a few hours sleep over the course of four days of cycling and crewing. I’m lucky I wrote what I did! Still, I always think I could do more, be better, etc.
Blogging.
This last week I only really wrote two blogs about what I learned from America’s Next Top Model. Super deep stuff, I know but lets face it: writing is most important this month, and blogging falls somewhere in the optional category.
Revising.
I did a pass on Decoy. I can’t really remember what day I did that, but I did it. It was mostly a spelling/grammar quick check to brush over it and see what I had and to eyeball my known plotting issues.
Plotting.
I’m rolling around ideas in my head but until today I haven’t worked on actual plotting this week. I want to do some work tonight for what I will hand in for Warrior Writer Boot Camp this week, but that’s something that can honestly wait a few days.
Writing.
Like I said above, writing time was little and precious. I wrote a lot on Monday and whatever night we stopped over in Sealy, Texas but other than that I wrote very, very little. Partly because the battery on my laptop is dead and I can’t stay unplugged for more than 30 minutes or else the laptop dies. If I had two hours of battery life there were several stretches of sitting around in the car waiting for cyclists to pedal by that I could have used.
Project: Decoy
Genre: zombie hunter romance
Type: novella
Progress: It’s done!! I finished it Monday, I believe. Wrote the ending, made myself tear up a little, and called it a night. There are a few plot holes I’ve noted but nothing major that can’t be worked out in revisions with a little whittling. Very happy with it, and really wanting to write the next installment. Better do my submission package for this quick!
Project: Booty-Call Bust
Genre: romance
Type: novella
Progress: This project is really shaping out to be a lot of fun. I didn’t really go into it with anything more than the idea of, “I really want to use this lore I created, and I want to write about secret spies.” The plot is going to be fun and very action packed in the next few thousand words so here’s hoping I can create something that’s loads of fun! Which means that this is my current ‘Project’. The one I’ll focus all my effort on in the coming days to write and churn out lots o’ words. Also, it’s not really going to be called Booty-Call Bust, but I have no idea what to call it. My Boyfriend is a Super Spy and I Didn’t Know is a little long.
Project: Superhero
Genre: romance
Type: novella
Progress: I wanted to write this for the Samhain anthology call for later this year. I started trying to write this Tuesday while camped out in the hotel room but I couldn’t get into the head of the alpha male hero and everything just flopped. I have a story, but I think the characters are too weak to actually write. Since I was out and about without my usual books to use as research I didn’t try to write it. I put it aside to come back to this week and try to figure out what’s wrong and what isn’t working.
What I read.
- Apocalypse Scenario by Mira Grant
- Why I Let My Hair Grow Out by Maryrose Wood
- Eat Slay Love by Jesse Petersen (still reading it. amazing!)
ROW 80 Check In
I’m going t do a proper check in this week. I’ve been blogging less so I might as well do the proper check in, right? No excuses!
Okay, this last week was the kick off of the Savvy Author’s Boot Camp, which translates to uber focused writing and editing time. I’ll talk more about it tomorrow when I do my big weekly check in.
ROW 80 Goals…
1. Finish Casual Love
Done, and done, and done! I need to write a new beginning for it but I’m not ready for that. I’m still exhausted from just writing it. I’m kind of hoping that the last week of May I will have the three stories I have slated to write for the boot camp done and I can churne out a new beginning then, but in the meantime I should probably read over the book so I get a better handle on what exactly it is I need to establish in the beginning of the book. This is more on the revising of this book, but oh well.
2. Finish at least two short stories.
These are more like novellas. The first one I wrote, Rescue Me, is out making the critique rounds. I told the group origionally two weeks and realized that with the boot camp I should wait until June, so in a monthish I’ll circle back to this and work on it again. I have a general plan for the siblings of the sister introduced in this story in case I can write the whole family.
Decoy is what I’ve been working on in the last week. It’s pretty awesome. I’ll talk more about it tomorrow.
3. Do writerly things every day.
This last week was a return to the dedicated mentality of doing things every day. Yeah, I felt guilty for the two weeks I was laying around reading all the time but I needed that. It was writerly in that I needed my ‘word tank’ refilled. It wasn’t obviously writing or revising or whatever time, but it’s still an important part of being a writer. And I’m okay with that. This last week though has seen me at the computer until all hours of the night getting in those words and pages!
4. Juggle revisions and writing.
The boot camp has made this really happen. I revise during the day at lunch or before work, and then write and blog at night. It’s really working out well. The revision project this last week was a fantasy book I wrote last year called Maliginus. I’ve been writing on Decoy. Last night I did a quick pass through a short story I wrote during NaNo called Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers. Sometimes I really surprise myself with my writing. All things are awesome!
ROW 80 Check-In
This is a difficult blog for me to write. When this challenge started I had a clear cut idea of where I wanted to go, but the best laid plans – well, you know how the saying goes.
So here’s what my goals were:
- Finish Casual Love
- Write Little Spirits
- Finish at least two short stories
- Write every day
- Juggle revisions and writing
And here’s what they are now:
- Finish Casual Love
- Finish at least two short stories
- Do writerly things every day (writing or revising or research)
- Juggle revisions and writing
I’m going to write more than two short stories. For the Savvy May Boot Camp I’m going to be emptying my idea closet and doing a lot of short stories/novellas to use some of these ideas. I’m hopeful that I’ll get through two to four short stories and perhaps a draft of Derby Girls or Space Particle.
I’m changing the #3 goal to writerly things because I have spent a lot of time revising, which is not necessarily adding words. The idea behind that goal was to develop the daily writer’s habit, not just to be a word factory.
So do you find yourself altering your goals to fit your needs?
Weekly Check-in!
I’m halfway through April, and I’m already thinking about May! I spent my lunch break on Friday listing out what I wanted to do the rest of this month and then everything I thought I could do in May. It’s a lot of finishing up half started projects right now and editing. My classes are going well. This is my first week of full classes. I’m taking three. One is a Alternative History and Steampunk class. Then there is a Self-Editing class being taught by Angela James from CarinaPress. Lastly, I’m taking a class on Adding Humor to your Manuscript. All in all, it’s keeping me busy!
I got a little bogged down this week so there were two days when I bucked the list of things I planned on doing and opted to just read instead. Sometimes you have to just know when you are stretched thin or burning out and take that step back and recharge.
Blogging.
I’m happy to say that I’ve almost written all of my blog posts for the month. All of the goals ones at least. I still need to clean them up, make a few more examples, and fill in the links but they’re looking really good. I’m very glad that I’m knocking these out of the water.
This weekend I started thinking about my May blogging and I might start writing those soon.
Revising.
This week was a lot about revising. First up, I was reading and working through an old manuscript called Abs-olutely. The first fifty pages are good. After that I feel like it becomes a mess. I’m not looking to ever do anything with this manuscript but my friends wanted the chance to read it. So I’m going through and cutting out some things, cleaning up the spelling and grammar. In a few places I’m rewriting the scenes. It’s not a clean manuscript at all, but the ideas are there. I finished it up on Friday. Here’s hoping it gives my friends a good laugh!
Rescue Me is on the cutting board. I’ve started going through it with the tips and tricks I’m learning in the self-editing workshop I’m taking. I think the story is already much stronger from pruning the unnecessary things I wrote in on the zero draft. I hit a point with it this weekend though and handed it over to my friend Suzan to look over and give me some suggestions. Here’s hoping they don’t hurt too much!
Blood Bound is a challenge. Won’t lie. I need to write more new scenes, but with the story being so complicated it’s hard to write this anywhere but when I’m at home. I wanted to be so much closer to being done with this project, but I’m not there yet.
Plotting.
I completely missed my Warrior Writer Boot Camp deadline on Wednesday. I was waffling between revising characters and doing the major plot points. I pretty much never decided and missed the deadline because I wouldn’t make up my mind. I’m going to make an effort this weekend to revising the characters profiles and jotting down the major plot points.
Writing.
Writing for now is on the back burner. I’m mostly editing and revising and working on class stuff.
Project: Decoy
Genre: romance
Type: novella
Progress: I’ve been sitting on an idea for a zombie story for a while. There was an anthology that I was trying to write the idea for, but it didn’t work out. Basically I was focusing on too many projects and it slipped through the cracks. Last week Suzan pointed me to a Carina Press blog where one of the editors said she wished that someone would send her some zombie hunter romance. Well, I thought it was a great opportunity to grab Isabella and Ty out of the drawer and work on their story. It’s coming along very slowly because I’m focused on editing, but I’m excited about it.
What I read.
- Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
- Once Bitten, Twice Dead by Bianca D’Arc
- Doubleblind by Ann Aguirre
ROW 80
I’m having the uncomfortable position of asking myself if I need to revise my ROW80 goals. Currently my goals are:
- Finish Casual Love
- Write Little Spirits
- Finish at least two short stories
- Write every day
- Juggle revisions and writing
I think #2 needs to go. I was hoping to write Little Spirits during the Savvy Author’s May Boot Camp, but I don’t think I’m ready. My Writing Horror workshop is in May, I haven’t read even half of my ghost hunting resources, and I feel like I need more prep work, so that is officially on the block to get cut.
As far as the rest of it, I finished writing Casual Love. I’ve completed one short story. I’m knee deep in another one I’m very excited about. I’ve also written and edited every day for the last two months and I’m still going strong!
I’m thinking that I’m going to swap out writing Little Spirits for finishing Derby Girls Are Dangerous and Space Particle, both are stories I wrote half of during NaNoWriMo ’11. I’m not saying that for certain, I’ll wait until I’m closer to May, but that’s where I think this is heading.
